The citizens of Tunisia rise up, burning banks and the mansions of the presidents’ corrupt family

The long and short of it is that long-time President and dictator, Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali, has been run out of the country by the violent protests that have been going on over the last few days, and the military has taken charge of Tunisia, with no end to the riots in sight.

Earlier this month, the United States Coast Guard upheld its self-declared status as a ‘special’ branch of the military with the ability to prosecute civilians in military tribunals. This startling declaration, unreported in the media, came in a Decision on Appeal related to the case of Lieutenant Eric Shine, a commissioned Naval officer in the Merchant Marines and a graduate of Kings Point Military Service Academy, and was penned by the Vice Commandant of the Coast Guard.

Executive Order 13544, Establishing the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council is a short document outlining the goals and scope of the order. The title gives the appearance that it only creates a Council, but buried within are detailed plans to carry out the “goals” of the Executive Order. Let’s take a closer look at the order.

The US Department of Homeland Security has been spying on people who don’t like gas drilling and handing on the data to the oil companies.

The air marshals, whose identities are being concealed, told 7NEWS that they’re required to submit at least one report a month. If they don’t, there’s no raise, no bonus, no awards and no special assignments.

Is someone out behind your house digging through your trash? Don’t worry, it is probably just the government. When Audi ran their now famous “Green Police” commercial during the Super Bowl last year, most Americans laughed it off and thought that nothing like that could ever happen in America…In 2009, the city of Cleveland has issued 2,900 tickets for trash violations, which was almost five times more tickets than in 2008. In 2010, the city of Cleveland is on track to issue over 4,000 tickets for trash violations.

It has also ruled that innocent civilians tortured and detained, even after release, have no rights for recourse against the CIA or corporations involved because litigation would jeopardize state secrets and top secret classified information critical to National Security.

President Obama’s new Executive Order on “Controlled Unclassified Information” {four page pdf} issued today builds on recommendations from open government groups and the findings of the National Security Archive’s 2006 audit of “Pseudo-Secrets” that uncovered 28 different and uncoordinated policies on marking and restricting official unclassified information.

According to a report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 50 per cent of the children in Gaza suffer from anemia and malnutrition. Also, one million Palestinians depend on humanitarian relief for sustenance; 80 per cent of Gaza residents live below the poverty line; and employment has reached 65 per cent, especially among the youth and university graduates. Average income per day per person is only $2.

A series of testimonies in a report probing Operation Cast Lead suggest that IDF soldiers used Gazans as human shields. The report – exclusively obtained by Ynet – was compiled by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) and Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, and focuses mainly on violation of Palestinian prisoners’ rights by the Israeli military during the Gaza war.

The report criticized Israel’s use of the “unlawful combatant” clause of the International Law, which effectively strips a detainee of any rights reserved for prisoners of war under International Law. The application, said the report, allowed Israel to essentially ignore International Humanitarian Law directives.

Each year around 700 Palestinian children are arrested, interrogated and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system. From 100 testimonies, from different age groups and locations, DCI found that 69% were beaten or kicked and 81% made forced confessions during interrogations, which would commonly take place with the prisoner blindfolded and handcuffed. 32% signed confessions in Hebrew.

DCI also submitted 50 cases of children suffering extreme abuse. These include ’M.S’, 16, who was “arrested at 2am, threatened with rape, beaten with a chair, then signed a confession in Hebrew”. ’Muhammad H.’, also 16, “breaks leg during arrest, hit with helmet and iron rod, nose broken”.

The United Nations (UN) reports that “15-20% of essential medicines are commonly out of stock and there are shortages of essential spare parts for many items of medical equipment,” further noting that 80% of what comes into Gaza does so via the tunnels.

Unemployment is at nearly 60%, and 98% of industry, including factories and businesses, have been decimated by the siege and the Israeli war on Gaza.

The over 1000 tunnels running from Egypt to Gaza employ upwards of 20,000 people and allow in what is banned by Israel and closed borders: foodstuffs, oil, cooking gas, cars and car parts, medicines, appliances, clothing and shoes, building materials, livestock, school materials, cola, milk formula, cigarettes, and even people.

It is called Spot and Shoot. Operators sit in front of a TV monitor from which they can control the action with a PlayStation-style joystick. The aim: to kill. Played by: young women serving in the Israeli army.

Amnesty International on Wednesday lashed out at Israeli ongoing human rights violations, IRNA office in Berlin reported. Unveiling its annual 2009 report on the global state of human rights at a press briefing here, the head of Germany branch Monika Lueke said there are daily human rights violations, and the Israeli seige of Gaza is an example of breaching human rights. To date, some 1.5 million Gaza-based Palestinians have been cut off from vital food supplies and 8,000 North Gazans have no access to water.

The chairman of the Israeli Space Agency (ISA) says the new Ofek 9 spy satellite will be able to detect any material transferred by the Iranians. Israeli experts explain that Israeli satellite, which was successfully launched Tuesday evening, will be able to broadcast images from around the world within days. Its abilities, they say, are much higher than what has been cleared for publication.

Not once, during the past 60 years, has Israel shown any intention of living up to the requirements stipulated by the UN, in connection with the country’s membership in 1948, namely that the Palestinians who had been evicted from their homes should be allowed to return at the earliest possible opportunity. Moreover, Israel holds the hardly flattering world record of ignoring UN resolutions.

In this instance, secrets meant to defend NATO from Soviet invasion were useful to Israel who traded them in order to get Jews released from Russia and allowed to immigrate to Israel. Israel contended that it was their inherent right to that information because they had a vital need for it. In that information, along with locations of all vital NATO nuclear facilities, were the names of all CIA operatives working behind the Iron Curtain and details on their contacts. After this information went to Israel, then to Russia, all involved, CIA handlers, agents and their families were murdered, the biggest intelligence disaster in American history.

US officials reacted angrily today at the inclusion of Israel’s nuclear arsenal as a topic of discussion for the IAEA meeting, insisting that it was “untimely and uncalled for.”

According to the Federation of American Scientists, Israel possesses more than 200 nuclear warheads which are simply adequate to evaporate the whole world in a matter of moments. Israel which is the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East and one of the three non-signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has blatantly rejected the appeal of the 189 signatories of the NPT, including its key ally the United States, to sign up to the treaty and put its nuclear facilities under the comprehensive safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The international foreign ministers conference held in Kabul Tuesday formally endorsed President Hamid Karzai’s proposed 2014 target for Afghan forces to assume the lead responsibility for the country’s security, while acknowledging that the foreign occupation will continue indefinitely.

Despite almost a decade of warfare, including an invasion and occupation, the US military and its allies and client state armed forces are losing the war in Afghanistan. Outside of the central districts of a few cities and the military fortresses, the Afghan national resistance forces, in all of their complex local, regional and national alliances, are in control, of territory, people and administration.

According to a Los Angeles Times report, a senior U.S. official stated the Obama administration wants to detain and interrogate non-Afghan terrorism suspects captured in countries outside Afghanistan in a section of the Bagram prison, even after it turns the prison over to Afghan “control.” This is consistent with Obama’s record of continuing and expanding the national security state begun by the Bush regime. Bagram is one of the pre-eminent hellhole prisons currently run by the U.S. military. In many respects it is even worse than Gitmo, with torture and death being the result for many prisoners detained there.

A top U.S. military official in Afghanistan says a major restructuring is under way to bring virtually all American forces in that country under NATO command.

“The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive the TV watcher to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US . . .” — Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook”

Before Chilcot, we had to rely on leaked documents such as telegrams from diplomats, accounts of meetings held round the sofa at No 10, and, for lawyers, the crown jewels of the Attorney General’s written advice to the Prime Minister. The Hutton and Butler inquiries helped to fill in some of the blanks, though qualified by their restricted remits and security considerations. But slowly and with only occasional fanfare the whole sad, sorry story is being systematically laid out in evidence before the Chilcot inquiry. Chilcot has not been about surprises but rather about confirmation, less about revelation and more about corroboration of what we thought we knew.

Tenuous though it may be, the Obama Administration maintains that it still intends to complete the Iraq military pullout by the end of December 2011. Even that won’t be the end of combat operations, however. Now the US State Department is looking to get into the war fighting business in its own right, saying it needs its own combat force to meet the “extreme security challenges in Iraq.”

In September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital, Iraq, had 170 new born babies, 24% of whom were dead within the first seven days, a staggering 75% of the dead babies were classified as deformed. This can be compared with data from the month of August in 2002 where there were 530 new born babies of whom six were dead within the first seven days and only one birth defect was reported. Doctors in Fallujah have specifically pointed out that not only are they witnessing unprecedented numbers of birth defects but what is more alarming is: “a significant number of babies that do survive begin to develop severe disabilities at a later stage.”

As some of you know, Falluja is a forbidden city. It was subjected to intense bombardments in 2004, with DU bombs and White phosphorus, and since it has become a no go zone – meaning that both the Iraqi puppet authorities and the U.S invading/occupying forces do not allow anyone to conduct any real study in Falluja. Falluja is basically under siege. Obviously both the Americans and the Iraqis know something and are hiding it from the public. And this is where Prof. C.Busby comes in the picture. He was/is adamant to get to the bottom of what took place in Falluja in 2004.

American taxpayers — and not KBR– will likely pay if the war contractor is found to have harmed Oregon Army National Guard veterans who say they were exposed to cancer-causing chemicals in Iraq. The startling details emerged in documents related to a U.S. District Court hearing Monday that illuminate the secretive world of defense contracting. Documents show that within days of the 2003 Iraq invasion, Kellogg, Brown and Root delivered an ultimatum to the Pentagon: Either the Army cover the potential cost of any soldier or civilian killed or harmed on a KBR project – or the defense contractor would not carry out its no-bid contract restoring Iraqi oil.

Nearly 24 hours after the release of these materials, several things stand out:

1) The government and media have in large part rushed to dismiss the leaked files as ‘old news’, a common disinformation tactic. The basis for the claim is that the reports end in late 2009, prior to Obama’s ‘surge’ policy. There is little counter-evidence however, that many of the conditions detailed in the reports have changed since late 2009.

2) At the same time the government dismisses the contents of the leaks, they denounce the transparency as a ‘threat to national security’. This Wikileaks scoop may provide a justification for further restrictions on data sharing and internet surveillance.

3) Much of the discussion centers on the reports indicating that the Pakistani ISI is involved in providing support to the Taliban (while also benefiting tremendously by ‘playing ball’ with the US). In 2003, $1 Billion in Pakistani debt was forgiven, and untold billions in military aid have been sent to Pakistan since. This incident will be used to encourage complacent acceptance of US military escalation in Pakistan, by US citizens and Pakistanis.

Which raises the question – if these are the logical outcomes, what is the purpose of the leak; who benefits?